Ezekiel 18:23

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” says the Lord Yahweh, “and not rather that he should return from his way and live?”

These words should be seared on all our hearts. God has no desire for, or pleasure in, the death of the wicked. He does not want any to be lost in the judgment. But inevitably it must be so for they choose that way themselves. Their wills are turned against Him and they will not repent. But God would rather that they returned to Him and found mercy, so that He might give them life.

These words were an offer to those in Jerusalem, even in their last extremity. God had no pleasure in what He was about to bring on Jerusalem. He longed that they might respond and be saved. They were a cry to the exiles too. If they would but hear there was a way back. Any who responded would be saved. That was why Jeremiah had been sent among them. That was why Ezekiel was now speaking the words of Yahweh. Hope was there. If it had happened in Nineveh (Jonah 3) it could happen in Jerusalem. And yet all the while the inexorable message of judgment on Jerusalem revealed that it would not be. God knew that on the whole they would continue to reject Him, is spite of His offer of mercy. But when they did so it would not be because He had not sought them.